CISH 2026
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Governing the Universal Church – Governing the Consciences

  • Date

    V. Friday, 28.08.2026, 08:30-10:30

  • Location
    House 5 SR 143
  • Theme
    J - Connections, Entanglements, and Universal Perspectives on History

Abstract

With the return of the Curial offices back to Rome after the intense Avignon period and the Church Councils summoned to end the Great Schism of the Latin Church, the Papacy had to face and introduce important changes and reforms into the system of Church governance, as well as to define relations between the Holy See and the local churches, strongly related with the historical and cultural events marking the passage from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Age such as geographical explorations and discoveries, colonisation of the American continent, Atlantic commerce, globalisation. Consequences of these changes are still visible today in the structure of the Catholic Church, and, far from concerning only the Roman institutions, strongly influence the modern and contemporary world. The proposed panel intends to offer an interpretation of the period of changes on the bases of the most recent researches conducted in the Roman Curial Archives, dedicated to the history of the Papacy and the Roman Curia, in close and intense dialogue with other historic and social disciplines, relating closely to the new technologies and digital methods.

Convenor

  • Jadranka Neralić (Department of History, University of Zagreb)

Panelists

  • Benedetta Albani (Max-Planck-Institut für Rechtsgeschichte und Rechtstheorie Frankfurt)
  • Antonín Kalous (Department of History Palacky University of Olomouc)
  • Antal Molnár (Institute of History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

Papers

  • Cardinal Congregations: flexibility and functionality of a novel governance system for the universal Church in the Early Modern age. A diachronic reading between history, legal history and Digital Humanities

    Benedetta Albani

  • Papacy: An Extension - Papal legates in spiritual and temporal governance

    Antonín Kalous

  • The missionary turn of global Catholicism: Rome towards Eastern Europe and the Balkans

    Antal Molnár

  • A new voice in the convent: visions and canonical regulations of the Congregation of Regulars in governing local monastic life

    Jadranka Neralić